


But I've done it enough

by sarcat



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-20
Updated: 2013-02-20
Packaged: 2017-11-29 22:08:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/692026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarcat/pseuds/sarcat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They’re done with each other.  Or they want to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	But I've done it enough

His knuckles go white on the fire escape, fingers clenching at the rusted metal until he was sure it would start leaving flecks of copper in the crests of his nails. He only loosens his grip when he hears her calling out to him. And it’s not like he can tell how desperate it sounds or how deeply her knees are pressing into the base of her headboard. All he can honestly focus on is the coolness of her eyes and how they are swallowing the darkness settling over Gotham.

“Wally.”

His ear twitches once, and he’s turning just enough to see her hands pressing into her windowsill. There’s a moment when he forgets that he’s not really obligated to answer her now, but it’s far too late at this point. His mouth is already running before his brain can catch up to warn him about lingering here any longer. 

“Yeah?” he answers reluctantly. Rolling the heel of his foot up, he pivots into a more comfortable position to behold her. He sees her. He sees the fury radiating around her. His jaw clenches immediately, teeth grinding venomously, calculating.

“You forgot your—“

“Keep it,” he replies quietly.

She leans forward with a creek, and his head draws back enough for him to see the light of the moon pull the shadows away from her face. He swallows thickly just as she’s about to open her mouth and his eyes shut so tight that he’s seeing bursts of fuzzy light in the dark. 

“I SAID KEEP IT!” he shouts clumsily before releasing his eyes to her.

She turns in on herself so sharply that he thinks that the tight line of her lips shifts into a frown, but he can’t be so sure because it was a blur to him and she’s already pressing her fingers to the top of her window to push it down shut. A few of her blinds are broken—ripped from aggressive movement on her part when she’d escape to protect the busy streets of Gotham—and he counts them all with a frustrated sigh when she flips them down to obstruct his view.

 _Four_.

But he’s angry. He has to remember that he’s angry.  And that he doesn’t need Artemis Crock.

He certainly doesn’t need Artemis Crock. He’ll shout that till his lungs go sore and dry.

His hands bury so far down into his pockets that he budges his jeans a little lower than they normally sat on his hips. With a slow turn, he makes it to the first step of the fire escape to make his descent, head only lifting once to check if she ever turned the light on in her room before his vision was completely absolved by thin metal. 

It’s dark.

 --

They’re both stubborn. He’s come to terms with this after only dating her for a whole year and two months. But this is the longest that he hasn’t heard her voice since they’ve been together. 

Six days.

He was counting. He hates himself for it, but he probably hates himself even more for mulling over the idea of shooting her over a quick text to see how she was doing. The disgruntled looking smilie is quickly dashed away with the rapid movement of his thumb across the screen of his cell phone. And he’s kind of miserable when he drops his phone onto his desk. The bright screen of his phone illuminates the wall behind his desk before it flashes off, leaving him alone to his own thoughts once again. And they are always mostly about her. 

He reaches forward, grabbing the first worksheet that he feels with his hand and slams it in front of him in hopes of shifting his concentration on to something else. Anything that wasn’t the fight or the yells or the things they couldn’t take back or—

The vibrations emanating from his cell phone reel him back to reality. His eyes are trained on it, watching it move with each loud shake on the surface of his desk. And he’s nervous, but his hands are on it quickly, fumbling about as he tries to right it in his hand. 

_Don’t go to voicemail. Don’t go to voicemail._

His phone stops rattling as soon as he swipes his thumb across the screen. He doesn’t even bother acknowledging the name that is ever so present and clear on the screen, he just presses the phone tightly against his ear, mouth open and ready to speak.

“Artemis?” he asks frantically. There’s no reason why his heart is beating that rapidly in his chest, but it is and the silence that follows makes him swallow fiercely.

“Um, not unless I’ve magically sprung up a few extra curves and sprouted a lengthy blonde ponytail. Would that make me dateable by your standards?”

He inwardly sighs, shoulders rolling back as he leans into his chair. With his shoulder, he balances the phone against his ear.

“Wow, exactly the girl I was looking for,” he grumbles into the receiver.

“Flattery will get you everywhere,” Dick counters. And almost as if for added measure, he can feel him grinning into the receiver. It only makes the roll of his eyes that much tighter.

“Enough, what do you want?” Wally cuts to the chase.

“Well, since you have been practically MIA this week from the cave, I thought I’d pass on this useful information,” Dick states clearly. “There’s a mission tonight.”

Wally sinks forward, one hand flying up to the top of his head to rake through his hair. He pulls at a few ends that have gotten a little shaggier since his last cut, and it’s really the only thing that keeps him from hanging up and pretending that he never got the call in the first place. 

“Uh—“

“Yes, Artemis will be there. And no, Bats is expecting you to participate,” Dick answers before he can even ask the questions.

“Oh…?“ Wally responds unintelligibly.

“Look. I know that you and Artemis are kind of—“

Wally stops him before he can continue. “Okay, you don’t have to go any further than that.”

“Okay. Sore subject,” Dick says with no inflection or hint of mockery.

“Just a little bit. But doesn’t look like I can avoid her forever I guess,” Wally reasons.

And he appreciates it greatly when Dick tries to lighten the mood. “That would be impressive.”

“I always try to go above and beyond.”

“I’m going to take that as meaning yes you will be here then? I’d advise not to take too long getting here unless you are dying to get a very intense glare thrown at you.”

“Right,” he breathes steadily into the receiver.

“Need I remind you that the best way to resolve your issue is to just talk to her?”

He waits a beat, relaxing the fingers that are latched onto his phone for dear life.

“Wally? You there?” he hears when he doesn’t instantly respond.

“Yeah, I am. I’m just trying to figure out how you expect me to talk to her if she’s the one that doesn’t want to talk.” He rounds his back, slumping forward until his chin is resting on his desk.

“I’m sure she does. She probably just doesn’t know how. You can’t just jump down her throat every single time she withholds something from you. She probably has good reason.”

“Yeah, cause there’s a ton of good reasons to lie to your boyfriend’s face and put yourself into danger,” Wally struggles through reluctantly. “Look, I just wanted to do this relationship thing right. And she’s making it difficult.”

“You both are difficult,” Dick muses from the other end. “So, I’ll see you in an hour? Don’t forget your suit.”

He can’t help, but grin openly at the final comment. He’s pretty certain that it’s the first semblance of calm he’s felt since he walked away from Gotham almost a week ago. “Dude, you act like that things not a second skin or something. Never leave home without it.”

He feels only slightly better when he ends the call and tosses his phone over his head and on to his mattress. In the time that it takes to bounce once, he’s already got the sunny Kevlar in his hands.

He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t hopeful.

\--

Things are actually pretty awful. The debriefing is kind of agonizing, or maybe it was just the throbbing pulse under his eye that was making everything feel ten times worse than it normally did when a mission didn’t go according to plan.

He’s not entirely worried about himself. He’ll heal. It would probably still look a little garish tomorrow, but it was the weekend. He had time.

His gaze wonders to the opposite end of the line where Artemis is standing tall and a little disheveled, a thin line of blood drying underneath her chin. She must sense his intense stare because he can see her eyes shift towards him curiously. Her gaze drops as soon as she realizes he’s looking, and it almost becomes super imperative that Batman kind of hurry along with the _you guys aren’t that terrible_ speech.

And he does. He wraps up, tells everyone to hit the showers, and she’s walking away.

 _She’s walking away in the opposite direction from everyone else_.

His mind kind of screams because he knows she’s heading towards the zeta tubes. It’s too soon though. He hasn’t even gotten the chance to talk to her or—

“Yes?”

He doesn’t even realize the point in which his feet reacted faster than his thoughts. All he knows is that he’s standing beside her now, her thin wrist in his hands. His realization startles him, and he instinctively pulls her a little closer to him. She resists, hand falling over his chest and pushing against him gently.

He let’s go instantly, watching as she retracts her wrist. He wonders if her skin burns as much as the pads of his fingers are. He can only assume yes with the way she gingerly rubs at her wrist.

“Did I hurt you?” he ekes out.

“No, obviously not,” she states plainly before releasing her hand to her side. “Why does it matter to you anyway?”

_“Why does it matter to you anyway!?” she says a decibel higher than before. “God, Wally. I’m sorry I lied to you in the first place, but it’s my own damn business what I want to keep from you.”_

_“So is that what this relationship is to you?” The frustration is bleeding out from his fingers and pooling in his eyes._

_“What?” she exhales in disbelief._

_“This relationship! Us!? You just want to keep building up a wall of lies around it?”_

_“Wally, I never said that!”_

_“You didn’t have to!”_

“Because it’s about us?” he wavers, “And I don’t know…I thought that the subject of us would be kind of important to, you know, us?”

He notices the movement of the team slow a bit, almost like they are waiting to hear more of their exchange. Returning his gaze back to her, he grasps her hand without warning and starts dragging her along behind him.

“Hey, what are you doing?” she hisses frantically.

“Just come on. I really don’t want the team eavesdropping.”

When she stops relenting, he continues his stroll with her, veering quickly to the right when he reaches the end of the hall. Without notice, she wrenches her hand away from his. He stops to look back at her, turbulent irises staring intensely into his.

“Five minutes.” She means business. “That’s all the time I will give you.”

“You’re serious?” he questions before resting his hand at the back of his head.

“Ticking.” She crosses her arms, anticipating anything that will leave his mouth.

He sighs, brushing past her before tapping at the door he identifies as her own. She remains unmoving, hands settling on her hips. The simple movement almost makes him feel that she’s changed her mind about even giving him the time of day.

“No. No. I’m done with you,” she admits turning her back to him. “I could hate you,” she seethes suddenly.

He blinks uncertainly, watching for any indication from her eyes that she’s only talking lies.

She doesn’t flinch.

“You don’t mean that,” Wally answers after a beat of time.

“I do, Wally. And you can’t change my mind.”

“I’d like to try. So, please? I promise. Only five minutes. And if you think that what I have to say isn’t good enough, then we’ll be done. I don’t want to do this anymore than you do.”

He taps once more on her door, waiting patiently for her to move with an answer. And when she’s muttering something under her breath that sounds strangely foreign while marching towards the door, he throws his head back in a relieved sense of victory.

Now the hard part. Talking.

He waits for the door to slide shut before opening his mouth, but she holds up her hand so that she can cross the floor to her desk where she takes a respective seat on top of the clean wood finishing. She settles a dried mud caked boot on top of the seat and pushes it out towards him. He takes the seat cautiously and notes the way her fingers are curled and clenched over the edge of the desk. And it’s silent and it’s just them and she looks like she’s one push away from exploding.

“Artemis?”

“You know I can’t take back what I did!” she blurts out.

He blinks a few times in surprise.

“You’re probably tired of me or my lies or whatever,” she says while lowering her head.

 

_Her hands are shaking at her sides. “I didn’t want to talk about this with anyone, Wally! Especially not you. I just needed a few days to myself, okay? Sometimes I like handling my problems on my own!”_

_He brings a hand to his face, rubbing the bridge of his nose before taking a swipe at his eyes._

_“So instead of just coming to us, to me, you decided that taking on your father alone was your only option?”_

_“He escaped, Wally! What options did I have? Just sit pretty while the league handled matters painfully slow? I know him. I know what he’s capable of and I know where he would go. It was the obvious thing to do. And why drag anyone else into my familial problems?” she finished quietly._

_“Yeah, and that’s worked out extremely well for you in the past!” he accuses, past qualms rearing their ugly head just when he’d assumed they were dead and buried. “Must commend you on your excellent track record so far.”_

_She narrows her eyes at him. “Shut up.”_

_“No, Artemis. I won’t!” he challenges._

_“I could have handled it. I just, I miscalculated,” she admits to herself, hand falling over the bandage at her shoulder that the thin strap of her tank top poorly hid from his line of vision._

_“You could have died!” he shouts, “Are you really that selfish!?”_

_“Excuse me?” she fumes dangerously low, and he wonders how hard she has to restrain herself from slapping him in the face._

_A steady silence settles over them, and they are both stewing._

_“You know what,” he starts strongly, with purpose. But he’s turning back to her with this sense of defeat that he can’t seem to shake as his fists unclench at his side. “Just…never mind. Just forget that I care. I thought we’d gotten past all this garbage before. I mean, we’ve been dating for a whole year. You know I don’t handle secrets very well, especially nothing like this. You straight up lied to me, to my face no less. And you think it’s okay? I just don’t understand. I thought we both wanted to be honest with each other.”_

_She softens noticeably at his words. “Wally…”_

_“No, just, no more excuses. I feel like there’s nothing I can do to make you trust me. And if that’s the case,” he pauses, lifting his chin up to catch the look in her eyes, “I think I should just go.”_

_She stares after his retreating form. She doesn’t make a move as he’s kneeling on her bed and pushing up at her window. She just watches him leave, and he’s not sure if that hurt more than the realization that she didn’t need him the way that he was willing to need her._

“Artemis,” Wally says again, but she’s got a hand up before he can continue.

“No, let me get this out.” She bites her lower lip for a moment, concentrating on the words she wanted him to hear. “You overwhelm me a lot. I…I…”

His eyes widen a bit, and when she refrains from continuing he pushes back on the ball of his foot to wheel his chair a little closer to her. There’s a moment of contemplation before he’s leaning forward and plucking her hand away from the edge of the desk. He holds her hand in his, thumb smoothing over the skin at her knuckles encouragingly.

“See, you’re doing it again,” she finally says.

“Doing what?” he asks her honestly.

“I mean you were mad the last time I saw you. And I thought I deserved that more than anything. But then you decide we need to talk, and then you do things like this,” she says while raising their hands up for him to see, “and I don’t even think I should have this. You’re too good for me, Wally.”

“Why would you even think that?”

“How couldn’t I?” she pulls her hand away from his and turns away. “You’re in this perfect world of yours where everything just magically works out. You have a whole family, no drama, and likely the last major crisis you had was finding out that there was no food left in the fridge.”

“Artemis, we’ve been through this before, I don’t care about that junk,” he responds urgently.

“But I do!”

They fall into silence once more and he leans forward, elbows settling on the bright red material at his knees. He takes a moment before shaking his head fiercely, hands reaching up to pull away the cowl masking his freckled face. He wants her to really see him.

“My life isn’t as perfect as you make it out to be. It is a pretty good one though.” And he sees the way the muscles at her shoulders tense as he takes control of the conversation. “Maybe that scares you, or makes you feel like I’ll never be able to relate, but you should know that my opinion of you is pretty solid right now. I just don’t want you doing reckless things like this and getting hurt. Do you even know how worried I was when I got the call from Rob?”

She sighs quietly, and when she refuses to look him in the eyes he pushes himself up from his chair. He takes a step forward, hand coming up to raise her chin.

“I honestly can’t even explain to you how sorry I am,” he tells her.

The confusion that settles on her features makes him drop his hands on either side of her. “What?”

“For just storming out like I did. That was dumb. I do dumb things, Artemis,” he answers without losing a beat.

He watches her lips twitch a little before the smallest semblance of a smile is tugging at the corners. “Yeah, you do.”

“Hey,” he teases.

“You shouldn’t even really be apologizing. I shouldn’t have done something so reckless. It just felt easier doing it alone, not dragging you or anyone else along,” she says before taking a deep breath and releasing it from her nostrils.

“I get it,” he assures her. “Just tell me next time you want to do anything crazy like that again, okay? I just really need you to promise this for me. I might not fully agree with every one of your decisions, but I want to be there for you if I can.”

“Okay.” It’s quiet, but assuring, and he thinks that’s all he really wanted. He feels her fingertips against the smatter of bruised skin beneath his eye, “That doesn’t hurt, does it?”

He shakes his head. “No, not re—“

He’s silenced. And her lips find his and her hand falls short at his cheek. It’s sure. It’s steady. It’s easy. And he can’t help falling into it, her warmth, the shallow breath she finally lets out when they separate. She smells like pine and the first day of winter. It’s all just really intoxicating. It’s the only thought he can settle on when his fingers weave themselves around a few stray strands of blonde hair.

“Good.”

\--

 

 

 

 

 

 

“You what?!” It’s loud. It’s really loud, and her ears are screaming with him.

“I said yes.” And she’s not ashamed of the answer. It’s something she’d been tiptoeing around for the entire afternoon. She’d gotten back from meeting with Dick and she was saying yes a thousand times faster than she’d believe she was capable of. It was something she wanted. This mission was exactly what she wanted.

There was a stipulation. And she’d made it so clear when the offer was made. _She tells Wally._ It was the only way. And when Dick budged on, sighing in defeat as he agreed, the deal was done.

“Did he force you into this? Because if he pressured you into this I swear to God I will—“

“Wally it was my own decision. I wanted this.”

He settles himself down on to the couch almost like he just got the wind knocked out of him. His face screws up in confusion, eyes flicking between the coffee table and her face.

“Oh?” And it’s the single most painful thing she’s heard him say to her. She frowns deeply, following him into the seat beside him.

“Wally?” Her hands are on his shoulder, his arm. He nudges them off, looking away, distant. “Please?”

“I’m sorry. If you can’t tell I’m kind of mad,” he responds coldly. He stands back up abruptly, pacing left and right. It’s not long before he’s got both of his hands to his head, eyes closed tight like he was expecting everything to be safe and different. They aren’t. And his eyes are screaming panic, the green of his irises becoming more prominent and sharp in their wildness.

She doesn’t apologize this time.

But she does grab his hand and she forces him to really look at her. It does something to him. It clears his head and makes his thoughts run less quickly together.

“I need to do this, and I don’t want to do it alone. I need your support more than anything right now.” And she won’t admit that she’s just as worried or scared that maybe this decision is crazy and stupid and reckless, but it was her own.

He grabs her. He just holds her, holds her together. And she lets him.

His heart is beating, pounding, causing havoc in his chest. And she can feel it, each guilty pound as she remains in his embrace.

He never tells her to stay, to reconsider. He doesn’t really say much else at all. But she can only guess at the panic when she asks him to listen, to do this all for her.

_“I’ll be okay. I promise. And then I’ll be back and it will be fine. Everything will be fine, Wally.”_

_“Yeah,” he offers meekly, “Yeah, everything will be fine.”_


End file.
